Shields of Pride – Elizabeth Chadwick

A slimmer volume than some other Elizabeth Chadwick novels, but still a good love story set in the Middle Ages. In Shields of Pride, Linnet de Montsorrel finds freedom from her abusive oik of a noble husband when Giles is killed at Smithfield horsefair, but her hand and her land is swiftly “reallocated” to Joscelin de Gael, illegitimate son of William Ironheart. The course of true love is inevitably indirect, but Linnet and Joscelin get there in the end, and on the way we have brawling (half)brothers, obsessed and bitter wives/ mothers, ghostly apparitions and royal rebellion.